Third Time Lucky

but he got over it and started asking me all these questions about the event. Like 'Who do you go with?' and 'What he look like?' and stuff like that.

I don't know what it was, but I found myself actually telling Sebastiano all about my love life. It was so weird. I totally didn't want to, but it all just started spilling out. Thank God Grandmere wasn't there . . . she'd gone off in search of more cigarettes and to have her Sidecar refreshed.

I told Sebastiano all about Kenny and how he loves me but I don't love him, and how I actually like someone else but he doesn't know I'm alive.

Sebastiano is really quite a good listener. I don't know how much, if anything, he understood about what I said, but he didn't take his eyes off my reflection as I talked, and when I was done he looked me up and down in the mirror and just said one thing: 'This boy you like. How you know he no like you back?'

'Because,' I said. 'He likes this other girl.'

Sebastiano made an impatient motion with his hands. The gesture was made more dramatic by the fact that he was wearing sleeves with these big frilly lace cuffs.

'No, no, no, no, no,' he said. 'He help you with your Al home. He like you or he no do that. Why he do that if he no like you?'

I thought for a minute about why Michael had always been so willing to do that. Help me with my Algebra, I mean. I guess just because I am his sister's best friend and he isn't the type of person who can sit around and watch his sister's best friend flunk out of high school without, you know, at least trying to do something about it.

While I was thinking about that, I couldn't help remembering how Michael's knees, beneath our desks, sometimes brush against mine as he's telling me about integers. Or how sometimes he leans so close to correct something I've written wrong that I can smell the nice, clean scent of his soap. Or how sometimes, like when I do my Lana Weinberger imitation or whatever, he throws back his head and laughs. Michael's lips look extra nice when he is smiling. 'Tell Sebastiano,' Sebastiano urged me. 'Tell Sebastiano why this boy helps you if he no like you.'

I sighed. 'Because I'm his little sister's best friend,' I said sadly. Really, could there be anything more humiliating? I mean, clearly Michael has never been impressed with my keen intellect or ravishing good looks, given my low grade point average and of course my gigantism.

Sebastiano tugged on my sleeve and went, 'You no worry. I make dress for dance. This boy, he no think of you as little sister's best friend.'

Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Why must all my relatives be so weird?

Anyway, we picked out what I'm going to wear for my introduction on Genovian national TV. It's this white taffeta job with a huge poofy skirt and this light-blue sash (the royal colours are blue and white). But Sebastiano had one of his assistants take photos of me in all the dresses so I can see how I look in them and then decide. I thought this was fairly professional for a guy who calls breakfast 'breck'.

But all that isn't what I want to write about although I'm so tired I hardly know what I'm doing. What I want to write about is what happened today after Algebra review.

Which was that Mr.Gianini, after everyone but me had left, went, 'Mia, I heard a rumour that there was supposed to be some kind of student walkout today. Had you heard that?'

Me: (Freezing in my seat) Um, no.

Mr Gianini: Oh. So you wouldn't know then if somebody -maybe in protest at the protest - direw the second-floor

fire alarm? The one by the drinking fountain?

Me:

(Wishing Lars would stop coughing suggestively) Um, no.

Mr Gianini: That's what I thought. Because you know the penalty for pulling one of the fire alarms — when there is,

in fact, no sign of a fire - is expulsion.

Me: Oh, yes. I know that.

Mr Gianini: I thought you might have seen who did it, since I believe I gave you a hall pass shortly before the alarm went off.

Me: Oh, no. I didn't see anybody.

Except Justin Baxendale, and his smoky eyelashes. But I didn't say that.

Mr Gianini: I didn't think so. Oh, well. If you ever hear who did it, maybe you could tell her from me never to do it again.

Me: Um. OK.

Mr. Gianini: And tell her thanks from me too. The last thing we need right now, with tensions running so high over Finals, is a student walkout.

(Mr. Gianini picked up his briefcase and jacket.) See you at home.

Then he winked at me. WINKED at me, like he knew I was the one who'd done it. But he couldn't know. I mean, he doesn't know about my nostrils (which were fully flaring the whole time; I could feel them!) Right? RIGHT????

Thursday; December 10, Homeroom

Lilly is going to drive me crazy.